Jordà-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Database

The Jordà-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Databaseis the result of an extensive data collection effort over several years. In one place it brings together macroeconomic data that previously had been dispersed across a variety of sources. On this website we provide convenient no-cost open access under a license to the most extensive long-run macro-financial dataset to date. Commercial data providers are strictly forbidden to integrate all or parts of the dataset into their services or sell the data (see Terms of Use and Licence Terms below).

The database covers 17 advanced economies since 1870 on an annual basis. It comprises 25 real and nominal variables. Among these, there are time series that had been hitherto unavailable to researchers, among them financial variables such as bank credit to the non-financial private sector, mortgage lending and long-term house prices. The database captures the near-universe of advanced-country macroeconomic and asset price dynamics, covering on average over 90 percent of advanced-economy output and over 50 percent of world output.

Assembling the database, we relied on the input from colleagues, coauthors and doctoral students in many countries, and consulted a broad range of historical sources and various publications of statistical offices and central banks. For some countries we extended existing data series, for others we relied on recent data collection efforts by others. Yet in a non-negligible number of cases we had to go back to archival sources including documents from governments, central banks, and private banks. Typically, we combined information from various sources and spliced series to create long-run datasets spanning the entire 1870–2016 period for the first time. The table below lists the available series.

Total Loans to Non-financial Private Sector (nominal, local currency), Mortgage Loans to Non-financial Private Sector (nominal, local currency), Total Loans to Households (nominal, local currency), Total Loans to Business (nominal, local currency)

How to cite the Jordà-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Database

Under the terms of use, any information taken directly or indirectly from this source should be cited as “Òscar Jordà, Moritz Schularick, and Alan M. Taylor. 2017. “Macrofinancial History and the New Business Cycle Facts.” in NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2016, volume 31, edited by Martin Eichenbaum and Jonathan A. Parker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press." Those using the house price indices should also cite the following paper as a source: "Katharina Knoll, Moritz Schularick, and Thomas Steger. No Price Like Home: Global House Prices, 1870–2012. American Economic Review. Forthcoming."

We advise making explicit reference to the date when the database was consulted, as statistics are subject to revisions.

Documentation

More details about the data construction appear in an extensive 100-page documentation file, which also acknowledges the support we received from many colleagues all over the world.

Terms of Use for this Dataset

On this website we provide no-cost open access under a license to an extensive long-run macrofinancial dataset.

This dataset was developed over many years with the generous financial support of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, the Volkswagen Foundation, and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. We also thank our home institutions where we have conducted our research. Consistent with the terms of the support we have received from all of these organizations, our dataset is being made freely available in this noncommercial form.

We grant every user at no cost a license (see below) to use and/or share the licensed material, in whole or in part, provided that it is for non-commercial (e.g., academic) purposes, provided that our dataset is properly attributed and cited to credit the authors, and provided that it may only be shared under identical license terms. Commercial data providers are thus strictly forbidden to integrate all or parts of the dataset into their services and/or resell the data.

Licence Terms

All users of this work agree to the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. The detailed terms of this license can be found here.

To comply with the attribution requirement in the license, whenever it is used the dataset must be cited as follows:

Those using the house price indices should also cite the following paper as a source: "Katharina Knoll, Moritz Schularick, and Thomas Steger. No Price Like Home: Global House Prices, 1870–2012. American Economic Review. Forthcoming."

We advise making explicit reference to the date when the database was consulted, as statistics are subject to revisions.

Acknowledgements

The Jordà-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Database would not have come into being without the dedication of doctoral students, research assistants, the generosity of many colleagues at universities, central banks, and historical archives. We are particularly grateful to Felix Ward and Niklas Flamang for coordinating work on the database at various stages of the project.